Plated Subscription Box Review + Coupon – May 2016

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Plated delivers a weekly box of pre-portioned fresh and seasonal ingredients, everything you need to cook their chef-designed recipes at home in your own kitchen. Each week, they offer a different menu, and you can select which dishes you’d like to make, how many plates of each dish you’d like to serve, and when you’d like to receive your delivery. You can skip a week at any time.

Three of the dishes offered on every menu are vegetarian. Plated also regularly rotates in vegan and dairy-free options. They’re committed to using sustainably sourced seafood, seasonal produce, and meat that’s free from antibiotics and added hormones.

COUPON: Free dinner for two with purchase of 3-dinners plan ($24 value), just use this link!

The Products: All of the pre-portioned fresh and seasonal ingredients you need to make chef-designed recipes at home in your own kitchen.

Ships to: 95% of the US. (Currently, Plated does not ship to Hawaii and Alaska, and there are also a few cities in Texas, including San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Laredo, and Midland, where they don’t yet ship.)

Each week, Plated offers a different menu with at least 7 dishes to choose from. For this box, I selected Truffle Pizza, Balsamic-Marinated Steak Tacos, and Tarragon Chicken.

When my box shipped, I received an email letting me know that I would need to have the following “pantry items” on hand: olive oil, black pepper, and kosher salt.

As always, the box was packed with care. Ingredients were bundled by recipe, and each item was in its own container.

The meats were sealed and packed at the bottom of the box, safely away from the produce and surrounded by cool packs.

Recipe #1- Truffle Pizza with Burrata, Honey, and Pistachios

Calories Per Serving: 750

Cook Time: 25-35 minutes

This recipe combines so many of my favorite things: pizza, truffles, honey, and burrata.

As soon as this week’s recipes were announced, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist this meal!

Prep for this dish was minimal. I rolled out my dough, rinsed the spring mix, halved a lemon, and chopped the taleggio cheese.

As a side note, I was really excited to see that this recipe incorporated taleggio cheese. I’d never cooked with it before, but I’ve been obsessed with it ever since a friend sent me taleggio & chocolate truffles. (I know it sounds like a bizarre combination, but it works.)

Even though this recipe was for one large pizza, I decided to make two individually sized pizzas instead. I topped each one with taleggio, truffle oil, and salt and pepper and baked them at 450 until the crust started to brown.

When the pizzas were baking, I made a side salad by dressing the spring mix with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

After the pizza was done with its initial bake, I topped each one with chopped pistachios, burrata, and honey and returned them to the oven to warm.

And that was it! So easy! This pizza was heavenly. The flavors were perfect together, and I’m pretty sure I ate most of my dinner with my eyes firmly rolled back in my head. I would make this dish again in a heartbeat.

I prepped for the meal by cleaning the provided produce, slicing radishes, chopping parsley, and halving pea shoots.

I then marinated the steak in a combination of balsamic vinegar, the provided spice blend, and olive oil.

To make the chimichurri sauce, I combined red wine vinegar, crushed red pepper, parsley, olive oil, and salt and pepper.

After the steak marinated for about 15 minutes, I seared it in a hot pan. After about 2 minutes on each side, I removed it from the pan to rest, wiped the pan clean, and charred the tortillas.

When the tortillas were all ready, I sliced the beef, divided it between the tacos, and added goat cheese, radishes, pea shoots, and chimichurri sauce to each one.

The flavors of this dish were great, but the steak was a little chewy. Maybe a different cut would have been more tender?

Meal #3- Tarragon Chicken with Spring Vegetable Gratin

Calories: 650

Cook Time: 40-50

The last dish I picked for this box was Tarragon Chicken with Spring Vegetable Gratin.

To begin, I cleaned and prepped all of my produce.

I sautéed the mushrooms in a pan over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes and then added in peas and pea shoots.

When the veggies were hot, I mixed them with heavy cream and shredded gruyere and transferred them to the provided disposable baking tin. I topped the veggies with pecorino and breadcrumbs and transferred them to the oven to bake.

While the gratin was in the oven, I seared two chicken breasts and made a sauce using white wine, shallots, tarragon, and butter.

After the gratin was out of the oven, I plated the meals.

This was probably the meal I was least excited about from this box, and it ended up really wowing me. The gratin was cheesy, creamy, and delicious, the chicken was tender and moist, and the sauce was delicious. Out of the three meals we received this week, this was my husband’s favorite.

Verdict: This box from Plated was a big hit. I enjoyed all of the dishes, and I loved the Truffle Pizza and Tarragon Chicken. The perceived value of a box like Plated is subjective, but, for me, it’s definitely worth the cost. I don’t always have time during the week to plan, shop for, and cook meals, and I love the convenience of having everything I need to make scratch meals delivered directly to my door. I think I’d spend as much (or more) shopping for the same ingredients at my local Whole Foods, and I’d certainly spend more if I ordered dinner out three times per week.

Do you subscribe to Plated? If so, which meals did you pick last week?

Lindsey is a professional baker by day and a subscription box junkie by night. She first subscribed to Birchbox in 2013 and her addiction grew when she signed up for Graze, PopSugar, and Knoshy. Her favorite part about being a subscription box addict is discovering new products- especially gourmet goodies, beauty products, and kitchen tools!

All views in this review are the opinion of the author. My Subscription Addiction will never accept payment in exchange for a review, but will accept a box at no cost to provide honest opinions on the box. This post may contain affiliate/referral links. Read the complete My Subscription Addiction disclosure.

6 Comments

Jane
May 28, 2016 at 9:13 am

Like Others Plated charges you card before you see the menu. I had to gave card before see menu and I did not like the menu. Charges are on my card. Bad Business!!!

I have tried four other food boxes and Plated is still my favorite. It may be slightly more expensive but they always have the *best* flavor profiles, the freshest ingredients, and the most unique recipes that always wow me and I end up making myself again. You can tell the quality is there for the extra price and I certainly don’t mind paying a few extra dollars for phenomal recipes I will make again and again versus just okay recipes that I can’t even remember a week later.

We had the pizza as well and it was fabulous. We also had the Mexican Corn Bowl (really easy and delicious) and Crispy White Beans with Kale and Cornbread croutons, also really good. I love the plated recipes.

I had the pizza too and loved that flavor combination! I never thought to use honey on the crust but that was a major success and something I’ll use from here on out. I love how there’s always one new ingredient I’ve A. never heard of, or B. never cooked with, with the Plated dishes.